Workers on Friday assemble a steel beam for the roof of the new Vikings stadium in downtown Minneapolis. A massive crane that will set steel beams for the roof is scheduled to arrive June 30. The crane will be delivered in 65 truckloads and it will take roughly three weeks to put it together. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)

Details, details for Vikings stadium costs

The Vikings stadium project team is studying the final construction documents for the $975 million stadium and working to make them fit with the project’s budget, stadium officials said Friday.

In early May, stadium architect HKS delivered the final construction documents for the project — about 1,500 pages of project details, down to the number of outlets in the building.

That delivery began the “arduous process of reconciling the final drawings and our budget,” Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority Chair Michele Kelm-Helgen said at the authority’s Friday board meeting.

Asked after the meeting how far apart the drawings and the budget are, Kelm-Helgen said, “Right now we don’t have any specific numbers. We are just going through that whole process to see what the numbers are and to reconcile them.

“It’s not a big difference, but we definitely have some numbers moving around that we need to reconcile, so that’s the process we are in.”

That process will play out over the next couple of months as final subcontractor bids trickle in for the $975 million project, she said. About $130 million worth of contracts remain to be awarded through September.

Kelm-Helgen said the process includes possible design modifications to accommodate the Super Bowl, which will be held at the new stadium in 2018, and a potential Final Four college basketball event.

Minnesota is a finalist to host a Final Four in the new stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2016 in downtown Minneapolis.

Additional features to accommodate the Super Bowl include some items now considered “add alternates,” like additional suites, Kelm-Helgen said. The Vikings would pay for those upgrades, she said.

Meanwhile, the team has agreed to contribute another $1.07 million for six additional escalators to the building, which increases the project’s hard construction cost to $767.66 million.

The team is also chipping in another $239,060 for 1,180 additional televisions in the building. The change requires some redesign, which increases HKS’ design contract to $36.086 million.

With the escalator additions, the building will have 18 escalators in the main entry area and 33 throughout the building.

Ted Mondale, the authority’s CEO, said other stadium operators around the country stressed the importance of having good “vertical circulation” in the stadium.

“We are going to have a building that will be able to move food and people and emergency services around quickly and efficiently, somewhat unlike the last building we were in,” Mondale said, referring to the Metrodome.

From a construction standpoint, about $89 million of work has been completed through the end of May, according to John Wood, Mortenson senior vice president. Crews have logged about 250,000 work hours.

Eric Grenz, a Mortenson construction executive, said an average of 400 people are on the site daily. About 17 percent of the concrete pours have been completed and deliveries for the roof steel started to come in a couple of weeks ago.

A massive crane that will set steel beams for the roof is scheduled to arrive June 30. The crane will be delivered in 65 truckloads and it will take roughly three weeks to put it together, Grenz said.

The largest “pick” for the roof steel is about 600,000 pounds, Grenz said. The first steel erection pick is scheduled for July 31.

Mortenson received proposals last week for “bid package 8,” a $60 million package that includes drywall, audio-visual, fireproofing and more, Mortenson construction executive Kevin Dalager said.

Proposals for the $24 million bid package 9, which includes finishes and accessories, are due July 10.

A 10th bid package, scheduled to be released in early July, includes sports equipment, facilities equipment, hardscapes and landscapes, with a combined value of $26 million. Those bids will arrive in mid-August.

Mortenson expects to wrap up the subcontractor awards by the end of September, Dalager said.